USA Network’s ‘Suits’ Is The Best Show that Smart People Aren’t Talking About This Summer

Most of the early weeks of the summer were focused on Game of Thrones, Mad Men and Girls, and the latter half of the summer has been squarely centered on Breaking Bad, Newsroom, and Louie. That’s as it should be. Five of those shows are brilliant, and one of them comes from Aaron Sorkin, a guy many consider one of the better writers on television. Or at least once did. There are other shows that occupy our time: Bunheads is good, Dallas is terrible, and Longmire and Political Animals are watchable, but there’s one show that’s not getting very much play despite quietly becoming one of the better escapist dramas on television.

That show is USA Network’s Suits.

Last year, if you watched the first few episodes of Suits, and then bailed, no one would have held it against you. In fact, that’s exactly what I did: Despite a strong pilot and charismatic lead actors (Gabriel Macht and Patrick Adams), Suits seemed like yet another legal procedural in a television marketplace dominated by them. It felt like simply another show in the USA Network factory: Take middle-of-the-road attractive people, cast them in an episodic series with self-contained episodes, and bookend each episode with a never-ending serial arc that most viewers will stop caring about by midway through the first season.

However, on the recommendation of several reader who had noted the show’s marked improvement over the course of the first season, I was convinced to check back in. I’m glad I did. Suits certainly doesn’t belong in the same company as Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, but it is a satisfying, often riveting, and always enjoyable series that has found a way to bring some dramatic tension to USA Network’s brand of breezy escapism.

In fact, the second season of Suits has borrowed a page from the best legal drama currently on television, The Good Wife, and eschewed much of those self-contained episodes in favor of a serialized season-long arc focused on office politics. They brought in David Costabile (Gale from Breaking Bad) and turned the show into a mini, contemporary Game of Thrones-lite: The cases have become secondary, taking a backseat to who will get control over the firm.

Been watching Suits since the pilot and it’s awesome to see it getting some recognition. A lot of people assume it’s the same bullshit as Franklin and Bash, but while we’re on the subject, wouldn’t Zack from Saved By The Bell have been a waaay more cooler Mike Ross?

It is a really fun show, especially considering it is a USA show. But yeah, unless the evidence Donna shredded turns out to be a plant by Hardman, they are really going to have to strain credulity to bring Donna back into the show, and she is likely the best character on the show. It was interesting to find out that Macht is married to former “The Real World” star Jacinda who guest-starred last week. An attractive couple, to say the least.

“middle-of-the-road attractive people” Really? Sarah Shahi and Meghan Markle, not to mention Sarah Rafferty, as well as Tiffani Thiessen and Marsha Thomason over on White Collar are “middle-of-the-road?” I wish I lived on the same road you do.

I’ve always been a Sorkin fan. Didn’t bother getting HBO because, frankly, I don’t watch a ton of TV anymore. New baby, new job, etc. have sent me to the easist-to-access stuff, such as Suits. Please, for the love of gawd, tell me Newsroom sucks and that I’m missing nothing. Tell me it’s like the worst episodes of Studio 60 combined with the insufferable first season laugh track on Sports Night and absolve me of my guilt for failing to call the cable company and order HBO.

Umm, Bunheads? Is this some weird subliminal television test to find out if anyone watches something that horrible. Because if it is, I’d like to stand up and be counted amongst the unwashed. I’ve hate watched every episode of that crap fest with my ballet obsessed niece and holy shit is it bad. Boring and bad. BAD. And this from someone who secretly loves ABC family programing – Switched at Birth is awesome drunken Sunday TV. But Bunheads, Jesus. The one thing they had going for them was the Vegas showgirl arranged marriage stalker thing and they killed that in episode 1.

So Bunheads is supposedly good, but is never mentioned on here until now. Meanwhile, Suits is mentioned in What’s On Tonight every time it’s on. Wouldn’t that make Bunheads the best show that people aren’t talking about this summer?

Love the show, but it would help if they got somebody who’s ever set foot in a large law firm to write or at least advise on the show. One week Harvey’s an M&A titan, the next he’s doing a real estate workout, the next he’s negotiating labor disputes and the next he’s litigating product liability suits, and 90% of these “cases” wouldn’t be handled by a major NY law firm. Also, associates sitting in cubes and paralegals in large window offices is a bit off, and all the hand-delivering of documents is annoying. But I guess sending mass emails with attachments doesn’t make for good TV.